Conjoint Analysis: A Potential Methodology For IS Research

The increasing prevalence of Information Systems (IS) has led to a plethora of methodologies to investigate their impact on organizations and people. In this work, we define a methodology as a combination of one or more data collection methods and one or more analysis methods, in order to answer a research question. The methodologies used in IS research range from case study methodologies (Yin 1994) that use a case method of data collection with varied analysis methods such as trend analysis and regressions to experimental methodologies, with control and experimental groups and statistical hypothesis testing, using analysis methods like Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). In this work, we propose a methodology called a Conjoint Analysis (CA) methodology, which is fairly new to IS research. We first describe the CA methodology, and the structure of a typical CA study. Next, we list some advantages of the CA methodology over other commonly used methodologies in IS research. Finally, we list some types of research questions in IS for which a CA methodology may be useful